Aurangzeb, the Mughal apogee and the seeds of decline

Date

1679 (jizya reimposed); reign 1658 to 1707

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Mughal India

Era

Early Modern

Significance

Aurangzeb (r. 1658 to 1707) expanded the Mughal Empire to its greatest territorial extent, stretching across nearly the entire Indian subcontinent.

A devout and austere ruler, he reversed the conciliatory policies of his predecessors: in 1679 he reimposed the jizya tax on non-Muslims, abolished by Akbar more than a century earlier, and sponsored the compilation of the Fatawa-i Alamgiri, a major digest of Islamic law. From 1681 he committed the empire to nearly continuous war in the Deccan, conquering the sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda but becoming mired in a draining conflict with the Marathas. These campaigns exhausted the treasury and the army, while his religious measures and heavy taxation alienated Hindu, Sikh and other communities and provoked widespread revolts. His long reign thus represents both the zenith and the turning point of Mughal power: within decades of his death in 1707 the empire fragmented, opening the way for regional states and, ultimately, European colonial expansion.

Empires active in 1679 (jizya reimposed); reign 1658 to 1707

• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE to 1857 CE
• Solomonic dynasty
  1270 CE to 1974 CE
• Ottoman Empire
  1299 CE to 1922 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE to 1999 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE to 1976 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE to 1912 CE

Related politics & governance events

• Akbar's religious tolerance and administrative reforms
  1564 (jizya abolished); 1582 (Din-i Ilahi)
• Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War
  October 1648
• The Declaration of Independence
  4 July 1776
• Execution of Charles I
  30 January 1649
• The United States Constitution drafted and ratified
  17 September 1787
• The storming of the Bastille and the outbreak of the French Revolution
  14 July 1789

Essential reading

• Battle of Feyiase and the rise of the Asante Empire
  1701
• Founding of the Bank of Amsterdam (Wisselbank)
  31 January 1609
• Shah Abbas I and the golden age of Safavid Isfahan
  1598 (capital moved to Isfahan)
• Bayinnaung forges the largest empire in Southeast Asian history
  1565

Further reading

The Mughal Empire

The wider story

The Mughal Empire

John F. Richards

The standard scholarly survey (New Cambridge History of India).

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